40 percent of Cryptolocker victims pay the ransom

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The Cryptolocker malware hasn’t been around all that long, but it’s been scarily successful since it reared its ugly head in September of last year. Its masterminds have raked in somewhere in the neighborhood of $30 million, and that’s because around 40% of victims are paying the ransom.

That’s according to a survey recently completed by the University of Kent. Obviously the thought of coughing up a couple hundred dollars is less frightening than the prospect of losing years of financial data or irreplaceable family photos. 4 in 10 users may seem scarily high, but what can you expect when not even the police are following their own advice about not paying the ransom?

Perhaps just as frightening as Cryptolocker’s success rate is another statistic from the Kent study. Almost 30% of the users they interviewed don’t bother with any security software of any kind. No anti-malware app. No secure password management app. Nothing.

It’s hard to imagine that same group of people taking the time to set up a reliable back-up system either. Ask any security pro knows what the best response to a Cryptolocker infection is and they’ll tell you it’s to wipe everything and restore from a good set of backups.

Six months on, people still aren’t getting the message and there’s really no excuse. Cryptolocker won’t be the last malware of this kind. Cybercriminals will come up with something even more dastardly in the future, and backing up your files will help ensure that you don’t ever find yourself having to choose between losing everything and having to part with your hard-earned cash.

It’s not as if backing up your files is a complicated process either. Today there are loads of hassle-free cloud backup solutions out there — like Backblaze and Carbonite. For a few bucks a month they’ll give you the added peace of mind you need when malware like Cryptolocker is on the loose.